Low Oral Muscle Tone?

i can totall empathize with you!! my son was born with low tone, torticollis and plagiocephaly!! he has been in p/t, o/t, s/t and sees a traditional osteopath. he is almost 4 years old and we are still dealing with it. he had 2 helmets from DOC band when he was younger too.

we are still in s/t and see our osteopath at least once a month - usually every 2 weeks. i also do a lot of sensory therapy at home which helps. he has had eating issues due to textural sensitivities, speech delays and other oral motor problems.

hang in there - it is great that you are doing early intervention!! it is best to deal with these things early as they are cumulative!!! as a former teacher i know the benefits to getting intervention early!! feel free to email me if you have any questions. i will try to find my resources for online oral motor stores where i got a lot of things to help!!
J.

My child also had/has low muscle tone. She also has Down Syndrome. When she was a toddler we used Deborah Beckman oral motor therapy and are currently using a therapy that involves horns, whistles and straws. We have seen good progress with this and even better if we could get the school to concentrate on things other than articulation. I would like to know more about the soonerstart therapy. My child is now 11 yrs. old. When she was younger we were told that she possibly had Apraxia ( sounds similar to what you describe) although we did not have drooling. We were not able to get a diagnosis due to the low muscle tone which we will probably have to some degree forever.

I know that speech therapy can be a great help in some cases. My Jeff was slow learning to speech because of ears that were almost always full with wax and had a inflection. Scotist Rites is where we had his speech therapy done, He real gain a lot because they work with him. I pray you will be just as happy with the growth you will see in your son.

Hi T.! My now 4 (almost 5) year old has hypotonia & Congenital Muscular Dystrophy. She has been in speech therapy for 2.5 years now. She has been in PT,OT, & speech thru state funded programs since she was 19 mos old. These therapies have helped her make tremendous progress. I am guessing sooner start is a state funded program. Where I live it was Early Steps from birth until age 3 then she went in to the school system. I don't know what I would have done without these programs. My Daughter is doing awesome now. Please if you have any questions that you think I can help with please send me a message. I hope this is encouraging for you. It does get better with the therapies and work.

A little about me: 31 working mother of 2 beautiful girls. Isabella 6 & Kayla 4 (5 in May). My husband & I have been married for almost 8 years.

It's great that you actually took action. Lots of parents just take it forgranted that their kids are cutting new teeth or are just "sloppy". It actually could be a precursor to a condition known as MMD. Myopathic (I think is the spelling) muscular dystrophy. It effects the facial/oral muscles (first) and some people go their entire lives without a proper diagnosis as it is not always totally debilitating. I'm not certain of the severity of your child's situation, but it would warrant a look.

Hello, my step-son is 5 and he has always had a major drooling problem. He has been in therapy (speech, occupational, and physical) he has recently been diagnosed with a learning delay and low muscle tone in his mouth and body. He has been in therapy for almost 2 yrs and his drooling has improved but it's not completley gone. I did hear that Childrens Hospital did offer a medication you can take for the excesive drooling, although we havent tried it. It can be frustrating...but I understand what your going through. I'm glad you found something that worked for ya'll.